


Discover me discovering you

by AshAndSnow



Series: Start With This [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Can be read on its own, Kissing, M/M, Mermaid Loki, Mermaids, Merman Loki, Merpeople, Seduction, Shipwrecks, Siren Loki, Sirens, Tony has a ship, Vague AU, he can be a pirate if you want him to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22985884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshAndSnow/pseuds/AshAndSnow
Summary: Following a shipwreck, Tony discovers something incredible.(Prompt: Work on something according to the schedule set for you)
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: Start With This [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1317602
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	Discover me discovering you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolfloner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfloner/gifts).



> Happy birthday to Tay, my dear and darling friend <3 You’re such a lovely, beautiful soul, full of warmth and all things good and spicy. I’m so lucky to call you my friend.

The water was rippling quite peacefully around him. Tony thought one might almost feel at ease.

If it wasn’t for the fact that his ship was sinking in the distance, flames eating up the wood as it disappeared into the depths of the ocean.

Tony wasn’t sure how long he’d been clinging to this one board, trying to figure out what to do. Long enough that he’d drifted quite a ways away from the wreckage. Long enough for the shouting of everyone else to quiet down.

Long enough that the sun was starting to go down, too. Tony was at least a little relieved about the respite from the heat baking down on him, but… well. After day came night. 

He’d need to figure something out, and hopefully soon. Lying in wait in the water while the darkness came did not sound like any type of solid plan.

He didn’t see much in term of land closeby, and out of all the debris immediately surrounding him, the board he was already clutching seemed the most solid.

His best bet was that outcropping they’d sailed straight into.

Tony debated it for a moment. The ship was still on fire, not fully sunken. But waiting until it did meant giving up the light, and he wasn’t sure he could afford waiting until morning to swim back there.

Well. It wasn’t much of a choice, then, was it?

He had to swim.

Bracing himself, Tony let go of the board and let himself be fully submerged with a gasp, before he started making his way back. His strokes were steady and even, but he was tired and his muscles were cramping a bit after clutching the board for so long.

Still, he persevered. Tony was nothing if not a survivor. And so, in the slowly dying light of the day and his burning, sinking ship, he made it to the rock.

Tony had never liked the sensation of wet clothes; yet as his back hit the hard surface of the rock, he found himself grateful for it. 

It meant he wasn’t drowning tonight.

For several long minutes – maybe hours, even, it was hard to tell – Tony just laid there. Panting, resting. Watching the stars beginning to unveil themselves, one by one, littering the sky.

He didn’t have a next step to his plan. At least not yet. He couldn’t stay here forever, but he couldn’t start planning how to get away without anything but himself and his wet clothes at his disposal. And until the ship had sunk, and he could begin to figure out if anything was salvagable or if some of the debris floating around was useful, it would remain that way.

All the same. He was tired. He could use a rest. Scratch that, he needed a rest; he wasn’t going to be getting anywhere if he was too exhausted to move and think.

He kept admiring the sky, the emerging stars. And then, between one blink and the next, the sky was suddenly lit up brightly by the moon and the light of a million more stars, while the remainder of the ship had disappeared.

Had he been asleep?

Sitting up slowly, Tony scratched his beard, blinking owlishly. He felt disoriented. He wasn’t as exhausted as he had been, but that didn’t feel particularly helpful. He still felt tired to his bones, and his head felt gently clouded.

At his feet, someone snickered.

Startled, Tony whipped his head down to see… well. There was no other word for what that was.

That had to be a merman.

He was handsome; likely pale even without the aid of the moonlight, hair black as the night surrounding them. And his eyes… oh, his eyes. Green, so green, as green as the tail that stretched out behind him, shimmering in shades of blue and emerald, just beneath the surface of the waves lapping around him. 

He was the single most beautiful creature Tony had ever seen.

Still, he asked, ”what are you snickering at?”

He hadn’t expected an answer, really. But he was tired, his day had been an epic disaster, and he’d spoken to the creature the way one might have spoken to a pet.

All the same, he got an answer.

”Your hair.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up, uncertain if he was reacting like this because of the answer, or because he was getting an answer at all. In English, no less. What the hell?

Deciding that his day had been bad enough without trying to break his brain about a merman speaking English, he let that matter go for the time being. Instead, he touched a hand to his hair. Which, oh yes. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel that it had dried in weird tufts and flat spots while he’d been out cold.

”Yeah, well, didn’t realize I’d be having company over tonight,” he remarked, voice so dry it could’ve been a fire hazard.

The merman wasn’t deterred. ”That’s your first mistake. Whyever would you assume you’re alone on the ocean?”

That was a surprisingly good point, in a way. Tony didn’t think of the vast amount of known creatures living in the ocean as worth much in terms of company, but…

Tony had always discredited people’s myths and stories about monsters and creatures and people. If they were real, surely there’d be proof. Tony, as it happened, was a big fan of science. And science required more than just belief. It demanded evidence.

But he also had no explanation for why Rhodey had suddenly changed their ship’s direction and headed straight for this rock, causing the untold amount of damage and calamity that had so catastrophically sunk his ship.

And there was little denying that the creature in front of him was real.

Tony’s mind started whirring and coming back to life.

Merpeople were real. Merpeople had a reputation for having a certain skill set. Rhodey had changed direction in a fit of uncharacteristic stupidity.

”The shipwreck… was that you?”

The merman shrugged. ”No.” His smile was cheshiresque, and Tony found himself believing him, even if he knew the chances of this being a lie were high.

But he was smiling so prettily, and he was so beautiful and ethereal in the moonlight, and Tony knew that this right here made him special. Who else could claim to have had a conversation with a merman?

Without realizing it, Tony started to shuffle closer. ”You’re beautiful,” he murmured. That, too, happened without him quite understanding where it was coming from – even if he couldn’t deny the truth of those words.

The merman laughed. It was the most beautiful sound, Tony had ever heard. Delighted and pleased; the underlying sharpness didn’t properly register with him. He only knew the beauty of this creature. In the back of his mind, some sort of protest was fluttering about; but it could not take root, no matter how it tried.

”You intrigue me,” the merman told him in turn. His tail was swishing and flicking, creating ripples in the water surrounding him. ”What’s your name?”

You weren’t supposed to give your name to fairy tale creatures, were you?

So why did Tony find himself doing it anyway?

”Anthony Stark. Tony for short.”

”Anthony Stark,” the merman purred. It sent shivers down Tony’s spine; it made him wonder why he had ever gone by any other name. He wished to be called nothing else for as long as he’d live, so long as he would be called so in this creature’s siren song of a voice.

Siren song?

He barely had the chance to grasp onto the significance of those words in the context of this creature’s seductive presence, before the words took flight and slipped from his hands, taking their meaning and significance with them.

”I’ve been watching you,” the merman confesses, batting his lashes and making it sound coy rather than creepy. ”For days. You humans see so little, but you, Anthony Stark, see so much more than most.”

Tony felt flattered. Flattered enough to put on a flirtatious grin and not question why he was doing so. ”Been watching me have you? Gotta say, normally I charge for a peepshow, but since it’s you...”

It was almost as if the merman had hoped for exactly such a response. His grin turned sharklike, sharp, and it was enough to make Tony very hot under his still damp collar. ”I’m not opposed to giving you a gift in return.”

Tony’s ears perked up. Hell, his whole being perked up, and he found himself shuffling closer, closer, until the waves could lap at his fingers. He didn’t register the cold; he told himself it was because he had become accustomed to it, even though he knew it to be a lie, deep in the back of his mind. ”Oh? What did you have in mind?”

”I could show you,” the merman offered, leaning close. ”Riches from all around. Life as you’ve never seen it. Colors you never knew existed, a civilization beyond your wildest dreams.” The creature caress his cheek with cold hands, water droplets running into his beard, and Tony could not look away, could not shake off his want and curiosity, could not… could not…

What was he thinking?

The merman was still speaking, meeting Tony’s dazed gaze head on. ”I could show you passion beyond what most mortal men will ever dare to dream of experiencing. I could show you. Anything you want, I can show you. Anything you want, I can bestow upon you. Knowledge? Adventure? Beauty? Sex?” His voice was low. ”Say yes, and it’ll be yours for the taking.”

Tony didn’t stop to think about it. ”Yes.”

The creature’s grin widened once more, and with a hand on each of Tony’s cheeks, he leaned in to kiss him; damp, cold lips, meeting Tony’s in the hottest, fieriest kiss he had ever had. He could’ve sworn the damp chill of his clothes evaporated on the spot.

And yet the kiss had been short. Closemouthed. Chaste, almost.

Tony was dizzy with desire as he blinked a few times after that.

The merman started to move back. ”Wait,” Tony asked. ”Your name. What’s your name?”

The creature smiled, sugary sweet and sharp, safety and pure danger, making Tony’s whole body thrill with warning and with desire.

The creature reached out and offered a hand. Tony automatically reached out and locked their fingers together.

”Loki.”

There was a sharp tug. A splash. Cold and wet.

And then dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Did Loki crash the ship so he could eat Tony? Is this Pirates of the Caribbean where a kiss from a merman will let you breathe underwater, and Tony and Loki live happily ever after? Did Loki intend to do the first, but Tony charmed his way into the second?
> 
> Isn’t imagination a wonderful thing?


End file.
